US President Joe Biden will join in a moment of silence and a candle-lighting ceremony for Americans who have died due to Covid-19 as nations globally press on with vaccinations, including with Australia giving its first shots.
As the US stands of the brink of 500,000 deaths some signs of hope are emerging in the world's hardest-hit country, with millions of people now vaccinated and winter's massive spike in infections dropping.
But deaths are still coming, and President Biden last month warned that "well over" 600,000 people in the US could die from the virus. "It's terrible.
It is historic. We haven't seen anything even close to this for well over a hundred years, since the 1918 pandemic of influenza," Mr Biden's chief medical adviser